Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Halloween in New Orleans - 2 Dead Many Wounded

Violence marred Halloween night in New Orleans, with two men killed and more than a dozen others wounded in five separate shootings, including incidents on Bourbon Street in the city's famous French Quarter and on nearby Canal Street.

In another story, the mayor had this to say.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu at a press conference Tuesday said a "culture of violence" that involves young black men with illegal guns has plagued the city and must be stopped.

Isn't that a riot, "black men with illegal guns?"

Those "black men with illegal guns" are like the users of heroin. But at least in the ill-advised War on Drugs we have enough integrity to admit it's not the end user who's the problem. It's the dealers and the suppliers.

It's the same thing with the gun problem. The criminals who use guns badly should be stopped, just like their heroin-injecting cousins, but the focus needs to be on the source of the guns. Failing to do that would be like blaming the street junkie fo the billion-dollar drug business that continues unabated.

10 comments:

after reading the coments in the Its perventable link you posted I have come to realize you all are not worth talking to seen as you all ignore your own flaws in your arguments.

i was going to point out and defend a stance of more atf inspections and spot checks of gun shops but it seems pointless seen as you all want nothing but total copituation (sp) to your point of view rather than a true discussion that comes to some common ground understandings of each other points of view.

We are perfectly willing to acknowledge flaws in our arguments. But what I have seen presented are not valid arguments. For example, (and these are general examples, not specific to you),the claims are made over and over that if you restrict gun ownership, only criminals will have gun.

In point of demonstrable fact, when one limits guns, fewer criminals have guns or use guns in criminal acts, while other undesirable tragedies, like suicides using firearms and accidents from firearms also decrease.

It is possible to do that, and still have gun clubs that provide legal opportunities for people who just simply LIKE firearms and firearm sports to continue to pursue their interests.

What it does not do is predicate that gun ownership on the justifications for concealed carry, and the hysteria that if you don't have a gun ready to shoot someone at any moment, you are in terrible peril of your life at every moment of the day, every day of the week.

Speaking of flawed arguments, if - as the statistics show - crime is steadily and fairly consistently declining, whether one attributes it to people carrying guns or not......doesn't it then follow that there is LESS need to protect yourself, that we don't need to continue to increase the number of firearms in our society? I never hear anyone acknowledge that, for example, we cannot completely eradicate crime,not entirely. I never hear anyone acknowledge that crime rates will be low enough that at some point, those firearms become unnecessary.

That makes it clear that the argument is not an honest one, but a lame excuse. The gun nuts will never feel safe, no matter what the crime rate is; the facts of crime rates are effectively irrelevant to them, except as an hysterical excuse for their paranoia.

So, when I see more acknowledgment of the flaws in the arguments on YOUR side, then you have a moral high ground to talk about ours. Overall, I think we do pretty well. And I give you my promise that if you point out a flaw in something I write, I will thank you for doing so, and apologize for my mistake, and correct it.

I don't know what you think 'total capitulation' means, but I know that I want to minimize so far as humanly possible illegal dangerous weapons - primarily guns-in the hands of criminals, and those who are unable to use them safely because of impairment to their judgment (like children or the dangerously mentally ill, and those under the influence of altering substances). I'd also like to see those who do qualify for firearms be required to keep them reasonably secure from theft.

And as to the drug testing topics here, one that hasn't gotten much traction would be the use of steroids. So-called 'roid rage is a real problem that alters judgment and increases violent impulses,sometimes dramatically, as one example of what I think we should look for in drug test results.

Dog Gone the link is the line "and it's a preventable one." in the last sentience of the post.

and although you as an individual Dog Gone may be a lovely person to debate things with other posters on this board do nothing but hold double standards that are ridicules like its not ok for some one they disagree with to state a law is stupid or needs to be changed, yet when they disagree with a supreme court decision they say the court got it wrong and that that's not how the law should be applied and how only their way is right. or how about the general name calling by a select few individuals and implied links to the KKK when they disagree with a poster.

but i will point out a flaw in your argument on gun ownership and the regulations there of in relation to the lowering crime statistics. you are right the crime rates are going down especially violent crime, regardless of the number of guns out there yet you as an individual along with most over posters have repeated the Meme more guns equal more crimes yet the numbers don't show that being the case. instead you say "it would make sense that..." but the stats don't bear that out especially since the 26 years i have been alive the crime rate has only gone down and we have had very tight gun laws and very lose gun laws in that time and the rates for crimes have only gone down.

DAG when Laci writes critically, especially about the SCOTUS decisions like Heller, he does so from the perspective of a former DOJ attorney specializing in gun cases.

He is comparing how inconsistent the Heller decision is to the entire body of SCOTUS decisions. I agree with Laci that the current court has disregarded the body of past decisions with which they should have been consistent, another example being Citizens United.

The disagreements with laws here are designed to involve people in persuasive discussions that address how we proceed with subsequent legislation - either repealing it, changing it, or adding to it.

As to your comment that I have not posted links to back up my claim that more guns equal more gun crime, in the larger context of declining crime - you are incorrect. I would refer you to a recent comment where I posted a link to where crime was down overall by 7%, but where gun crimes went UP 53%. That represented a major decline in other kinds of crime than those with guns, but a big jump in gun crime.

That is what is wrong with superficial analysis of data, and specifically why more guns do not reduce crime, and do add to crimes involving guns. Without guns, those statistics indicate that overall crime would have declined even more,not less. And in that context they did not include a single instance where a privately owned / carried hand gun had stopped a single crime in prores or prevented a crime from occurring.

Dog gone you missed my point its not that laci doesn't agree with the SCOTUS its that when someone supporting gun rights points out a idiotic or stupid law we get told that we have to abide by it (which we never said we don't by the way) yet laci and others get to say a SCOTUS opinion doesn't count because they feel differently. That is hipocracy.

This article compared gun ownership to heroin addiction. That's a stretch, but let's go with it for the moment. Perhaps the author has never heard about proposals to legalize drugs? Our War on Drugs has been an abysmal failure, and the War on Guns a miscarriage. In both cases, punish those who harm others, help those in need, and leave responsible citizens who aren't hurting anyone alone.

Well, this is why I hate comparisons, but since I started it, let me try to clarify.

Guns being used by criminals are like heroin being used by junkies in that the real bad guys are those who supply the guns and heroin to the users. That would be the lawful gun owners who are responsible for gun flow into the underworld and the drug dealers and traffickers.

DAG, My idea is not that the Supreme Court decision I disagree with "doesn't count," it's just that it's a wrong decision and will eventually be reversed.

I believe the entire idea of individual rights of gun ownership will become passe', which would not necessarliy be the same as outlawing private gun ownership, but simply saying it's ludicrous to jump from the right to self defense to the right to own a particular inanimate object in order to be able to defend oneself.

its funny this is what you all on this forum seem to do, not talk about the point that's being made but instead defend the point that was referenced as an example. My issue is the majority of posters are hypocritical in how they act in defense of their point of view, its ok for one side to think a decision is bad or wrong but when the other side says the same thing the answer isn't well work to change the law its a thumb in eye response like "so what you get to chose what laws you follow." when one side gets to say and act one way but the other gets criticized for doing the same thing that is Hypocrisy.

or how about my post's where i pointed out a dishonest topic header, everyone came to the initial defense of the topic title but then kept saying i was wrong without arguing against my point and instead moved over to the issue of the guy being an NRA employee.

the reality is between the name calling and the general lack of standards that most people on this blog hold themselves to its not worth wasting my leisure time on discussing with people who can't hold themselves to standards they hold others to.

WTF is it with people that think we don't know the difference between heroin addiction and gun ownership while simultaneously conflating regulation of firearms with "I kint haz my gunz?! Oh, noooooooooooos!!

This reminds me of conversations I had with my dad when I was in high school. He'd ask where I was going and I would be as vague as I could be about my plans for the evening. He would press me for details and I'd say, "You don't trust me!". His reply would be an earlier version of Mr. Reagan's admonition about the nuclear weapons treaty with the russians. He did trust me, but he still wanted to KNOW what I would be doing and where I'd be doing it. Vagueness bothered him--a lot.

When people tell me that my world will be safer if they're packing, they make me nervous. When they tell me the world will be safer if everyone, including me, is armed, I know they're full of shit.